ALBERT

Description: Ocean acidification (OA) has been identified as one of the major climate-change related threats, mainly due to its significant impacts on marine calcifiers. Among those are the calcareous green algae of the genus Halimeda that are known to be major carbonate producers in shallow tropical and subtropical seas. Hence, any negative OA impacts on these organisms may translate into significant declines in regional and global carbonate production. In this study, we compiled the available information regarding Halimeda spp. responses to OA (experimental, in situ), with special focus on the calcification responses, one of the most studied response parameters in this group. Furthermore, among the compiled studies (n = 31), we selected those reporting quantitative data of OA effects on algal net calcification in an attempt to identify potential general patterns of species- and/or regional-specific OA responses and hence, impacts on carbonate production. While obtaining general patterns was largely hampered by the often scarce number of studies on individual species and/or regions, the currently available information indicates species-specific susceptibility to OA, seemingly unrelated to evolutionary lineages (and associated differences in morphology), that is often accompanied by differences in a species� response across different regions. Thus, for projections of future declines in Halimeda-associated carbonate production, we used available regional reports of species-specific carbonate production in conjunction with experimental OA responses for the respective species and regions. Based on the available information, declines can be expected worldwide, though some regions harbouring more sensitive species might be more impacted than others.

Description: The EUREF Permanent GNSS Network (EPN) provides a unique atmospheric dataset over Europe in the form of Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) time series. These ZTD time series are estimated independently by different analysis centers, but a combined solution is also provided. Previous studies showed that changes in the processing strategy do not affect trends and seasonal amplitudes. However, its effect on the temporal and spatial variations of the stochastic component of ZTD time series has not yet been investigated. This study analyses the temporal and spatial correlations of the ZTD residuals obtained from four different datasets: one solution provided by ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana Centro di Geodesia Spaziale, Italy), two solutions provided by GOP (Geodetic Observatory Pecny, Czech Republic), and one combined solution resulting from the EPN’s second reprocessing campaign. We find that the ZTD residuals obtained from the three individual solutions can be modeled using a first-order autoregressive stochastic process, which is less significant and must be completed by an additional white noise process in the combined solution. Although the combination procedure changes the temporal correlation in the ZTD residuals, it neither affects its spatial correlation structure nor its time-variability, for which an annual modulation is observed for stations up to 1,000 km apart. The main spatial patterns in the ZTD residuals also remain identical. Finally, we compare two GOP solutions, one of which only differs in the modeling of non-tidal atmospheric loading at the observation level, and conclude that its modeling has a negligible effect on ZTD values.

Description: Temporal aliasing errors resulting from the undersampling of non-tidal atmospheric as well as oceanic mass variations constitute the largest limitation towards the retrieval of monthly gravity solutions based on GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite gravity missions. Their mitigation is thus a primary goal of current research. Unfortunately, the two-step co-parametrization approach proposed for application in Bender-type gravity retrieval scenario in Wiese et al. yields no added value for a single satellite pair. A detailed study of this parametrization strategy is carried out and it is shown that the reason for this is the flawed central assumption of the proposed method, that is that signals of different spatial wavelengths can be perfectly captured and separated with respect to their temporal extent. Based on this finding, we derive a multi-step self-de-aliasing approach (DMD) which aims to rectify the shortcoming of the Wiese et al. method specifically for the single-pair case while retaining its independence from background-model-based de-aliasing of non-tidal atmosphere and ocean (AO) signal components. The functionality and added value of this novel approach is validated within a set of numerical closed-loop simulations as well as in real GRACE and GRACE-FO data processing. The simulation results show that the DMD may improve the gravity retrieval performance in the high-degree spectrum by more than one order of magnitude if one aims to retrieve the full AOHIS (i.e. atmosphere, ocean, hydrology, ice, solid earth) signal, and by at least a factor 5 if a priori AO de-aliasing is applied. Simultaneously, the DMD is shown to degrade the retrieval of the low degrees, but it is also demonstrated that this issue can be mitigated by introducing a constraint into the processing scheme. The simulation results are widely confirmed by results obtained from applying the DMD to real GRACE/GRACE-FO data of the test years 2007, 2014 and 2019. The applicability of the DMD is further shown for Bender-type gravity retrieval. It is demonstrated that in case of a double-pair-based gravity retrieval this approach is at least equivalent to the Wiese et al. method.

Description: The Pan-African belts of Malawi contain a largely unexplored endowment of gem bearing pegmatites. We present U–Pb in zircon (LA-ICPMS) and Rb–Sr mineral isochron geochronological and isotope data from pegmatites across Malawi. The pegmatites contain tourmaline, beryl, aquamarine, zircon, amethyst and sunstone as gemstone species. Two zircon bearing pegmatites in southern Malawi intruded early in the Pan-African orogenic cycle at 719 ± 5 Ma and 729 ± 4 Ma and are associated with the emplacement of alkaline rocks that formed during an intra-continental rifting episode in the eastern part of former Rodinia. One further zircon pegmatite containing inherited zircon of a similar age (746 ± 44 Ma) was emplaced at 598 ± 15 Ma, after the assembly of Western and Eastern Gondwana and the formation of the East African Orogen (EAO). The majority of the analysed pegmatites, however, are significantly younger. The ∼550 Ma pegmatites were emplaced during the Kuunga Orogeny, correlating with the collision of northern and southern Gondwana cratonic entities. During a prolonged post-collisional period, possibly related to crustal collapse and extension, further gem-mineralised pegmatites formed at ∼520 ± 6 Ma and ∼500–485 Ma. The youngest pegmatite intruded in the southern Malawian Ntcheu area in the Middle Ordovician at ∼460 Ma. A large spread in 87Sr/86Sr initial isotopic ratios between 0.70556 and 0.79018 suggests a variety of magma sources for the Kuunga-related pegmatites with a variably strong crustal affinity.

Description: Ilmenite and olivine megacrysts from the 89 Ma Monastery kimberlite (Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa) captured abundant and large melt inclusions containing quenched Si-Mg-rich melt, calcite, spinel, perovskite, phlogopite, and serpentine. Textural observations and 3D X-ray tomography of ilmenite and olivine megacrysts show melt inclusion shapes, sizes and distribution patterns indicative of melt capture during primary crystal growth near the base of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM). Patterns supporting secondary melt injection along fractures or veins, such as planar arrays of melt inclusions, are absent. Melt inclusions in olivine, in some examples reaching the dimension of centimetres, likely were captured in skeletal voids forming in fast growing, up to decimetre-sized olivine megacrysts. These large melt inclusions commonly decrepitated, forming apophyses, radial fractures, and veins, along which residual volatile- and Si-Mg-rich melt was extracted. We attribute the decrepitation of melt inclusions in olivine to the rapidly increasing difference between the melt pressure in the inclusions, captured at mantle depth, and the decreasing confining stress to which the host olivines were exposed during magma ascent and after emplacement. In ilmenite, melt inclusions up to ∼ 6 mm in diameter remained commonly intact during the kimberlite ascent from its mantle source to the shallow crust. The quenched silicate melt in olivine- and ilmenite-hosted melt inclusions, in some places preserved as unaltered hydrous and CO3-bearing glass, shows systematic major element compositional variations that suggest that this melt formed by similar fractionation and depletion processes, irrespective of the hosting megacryst phase. Apparent modal variations in quenched silicate melt, calcite, and oxide contents suggest that the melt batches captured as inclusions in ilmenite and olivine either record different evolution stages in the megacryst magma, or document compositional heterogeneities in this magma at the time of megacryst growth.

Description: This chapter aims at introducing the reader to general concepts about the main forcings of the Mediterranean Sea, in terms of exchanges through the Strait of Gibraltar, and air-sea exchanges of heat, freshwater, and momentum. These forcings are also responsible for the peculiar characteristics of Mediterranean water masses. Therefore, the chapter continues with giving a general explanation on water mass analysis, and then it describes the properties and vertical and horizontal distributions of the main Mediterranean water masses. To conclude, the reader is introduced to the use of other (biogeochemical, and chemical) tracers of water masses, with a focus on the Mediterranean Sea.

Description: Nooit zal ik die Donderdagmorgen 10 Augustus 1944 vergeten, toen ik op het laboratorium hoorde dat in de krant — wie las dat vod nog in die tijd — stond dat UITTIEN gefusilleerd was. Het drong eerst niet goed tot mij door. Het kon niet waar zijn. De krant werd gehaald. Ja, daar stond zijn naam in een lange lijst van lotgenoten en het verschrikkelijke, het onherroepelijke, begon langzaam tot mij door te dringen. Koud en gevoelloos stond daar het bericht, van een leugenachtige argumentatie voorzien, dat men ook UITTIEN, die zachtmoedige, gevoelige, intelligente man, had vermoord. Woorden waren hiervoor op dat moment niet te vinden. Ik had alleen behoefte zijn oudste zuster, waaraan hij zeer gehecht was, op te zoeken. Door de slechte treinverbindingen kon ik eerst de volgende dag naar Brummen. Daar trof ik een diep verslagen kring van familie en vrienden van UITTIEN. Wij konden het ons nog zo moeilijk realiseren dat wij hem niet weer zouden zien. Eerst nu wij hem voor goed verloren hadden beseften wij in volle omvang hoe groot wel de plaats was die hij in ons aller leven innam. Van nature had UITTIEN weinig belangstelling voor politiek. Hij vond dat hij daar niets van wist en er dus ook niet aan mee behoefde te doen. Hij had dan ook de gewoonte zijn stembiljet blanco, ja zelfs zonder het open te vouwen, weer meteen in de bus te laten glijden, zeer tot ongenoegen van de partij-mannen die bij een dergelijke gelegenheid op het stembureau plegen te zitten. Wel was hij met hart en ziel het Koninklijk Huis toegedaan. Later heeft hij zijn blanco stemmerij opgegeven, daar het hem duidelijk was dat hij op die manier ongewild toch wel eens de door hem toen reeds verafschuwde N.S.B. zou kunnen steunen. De gang van zaken in Duitsland opende hem de ogen en reeds voor de oorlog liet hij zijn antinazi instelling duidelijk blijken. Zo zond hij na de overval van de Duitsers op Tsjecho-Slowakije een paar overdrukjes aan een botanicus in dat land met op het adres: .... Tsjecho-Slovakia, temporarily occupied by Germany. Dit had tot zijn intens genoegen een geheel onverwacht gevolg, n.1. een stroom van overdrukjes van allerlei Tsjechische botanici waarvan hij nog nooit gehoord had. Na de overval op ons land, het bombardement van Rotterdam, dat diepe indruk op hem maakte, en de daarop volgende bezetting, was UITTIEN dan ook een felle tegenstander van Duitsers en N.S.B.ers. Hij uitte dat waar hij kon in woord en daad. Op de Middelbare Koloniale Landbouwschool te Deventer waar hij leraar was, leidde dat tot wrijvingen met een N.S.B.-collega, die alles aan zijn Duitse meesters rapporteerde. Op 31 Aug. 1941, de verjaardag van H.M. de Koningin, kwam het tot een ernstige, maar niet onvermakelijke botsing met de Deventer zwarthemden, vanwege het feit dat hij binnenshuis met een oranjedas rondliep. Zijn huis aan de Dahliastraat werd door de N.S.B.ers belegerd, hetgeen een grote volksoploop en kloppartij tot gevolg had. Korte tijd daarna werd hij wegens dit feit en zijn „tartende” houding tegen de N.S.B.-collega ontslagen. Daar het departement een gunstige wachtgeldregeling maakte was dit geheel tot zijn genoegen. Sindsdien toch kon UITTIEN zich met nog meer energie wijden aan de taak, die hij zich ten bate van de oorlogvoering gesteld had, nl. het bijhouden van een uitvoerig dagboek en het verspreiden van door de radio opgevangen nieuwsberichten en van illegaal uitgegeven geschriften. Het is buitengewoon jammer dat dit dagboek in de laatste oorlogsmaanden door brand verloren is gegaan. Zijn folkloristische neigingen kwamen hem bij het samenstellen van dit dagboek goed van pas. Dagelijks tekende hij alles aan wat hij hoorde. Elk nieuwtje, elk gerucht, elke anecdote, met nauwkeurige opgave van plaats, tijd enz. Hoewel dus alles door elkaar kwam te staan, nl. alleen in de volgorde zoals hij de berichten kreeg, was het toch een verhaal dat men met spanning zat te lezen. Dat kwam natuurlijk ook vooral door de originele wijze waarop hij het gehoorde op schrift stelde. Zijn dagboek zou ongetwijfeld voor de geschiedschrijving van deze jaren van belang zijn geweest. Hoe ver zijn medewerking aan de illegale bladen zich uitstrekte, kan ik niet zeggen, daar hij dat begrijpelijk ook voor zijn familie en naaste vrienden verborgen hield. Wellicht heeft hij wel eens iets in deze bladen geschreven, maar zijn voornaamste medewerking was zeker de verspreiding. Op 29 Januari 1944 werd hij, op grond van verdenking van medewerking aan de verspreiding van „Trouw”, gearresteerd en naar het concentratiekamp Vught overgebracht. Voor zover wij wisten was er echter geen enkel positief bewijs tegen hem. Dat was dan ook waarschijnlijk de reden dat hij zelf dacht vrij te komen. De weinige brieven die hij uit zijn gevangenschap mocht schrijven waren merendeels opgewekt en getuigden van zijn onvergankelijke gevoel voor humor. Helaas werden zijn optimistische gedachten, geuit in zijn laatste brief, niet tot werkelijkheid. Hij schreef daarin dat hij nu wel spoedig dacht thuis te komen. In plaats daarvan werd echter zijn groep plotseling voor een standgerecht gebracht, en niet voor een gewone militaire rechtbank waarop zij recht hadden. De zaken gingen voor de Duitsers in die dagen slecht. De Amerikanen en Engelsen waren in het Westen doorgebroken. Vermoedelijk is er uit Berlijn een bericht gekomen, dat maar weer eens een voorbeeld moest worden gesteld om de schrik erin te houden. Zo werden deze mensen zonder dat iemand iets van de gang van zaken afwist ter dood veroordeeld en gefusilleerd. Weer was op een misdadige wijze met verkrachting van elk begrip van humaniteit en rechtsgevoel, aan 23 landgenoten het leven ontnomen, rouw en verbeten woede achterlatend.

Description: Mr C.T. White is to be congratulated on being presented with, the Mueller Memorial Medal awarded by the Adelaide Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Aug. 1946. This award is in recognition of his work on the systematic botany of Queensland. Dr Ir J.Ph. Pfeiffer, Director of Research, B.P.M.-lab., Amsterdam, died Nov. 18, 1947, at Amsterdam, 58 years old. He was formerly wood-technologist, and collected plants in Simaloer Island, NW Sumatra.

Description: Index Kewensis. Suppl. 10. (1936-1940). Clarendon Press, Oxford, £4/4. (1947). Check List of British vascular plants (Journ. Ecol. 33 (1946) 308-347). Nomenclature accepted by the Brit. Ecol. Soc. to uniformize the binary names used for British plants.

Description: We are glad to be able to add to the list of herbaria which have agreed to send on loan herbarium specimens to collaborators of the Flora Malesiana: Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Sandakan, British North Borneo. Mr H.G. Keith, Conservator of Forests is in charge. Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Lae, Territory of New Guinea. Mr J.S. Womersley, Forest Botanist, is in charge (see p. 61).

Description: Dr C.A. Backer is now preparing the MS. on the Orchidaceae for the Flora of Java on the basis of a MS. by the late Dr J.J. Smith. Mr J. Monachino has finished his revision of the genus Alstonia (Apoc.); it is expected to be published early in 1949 in ”Pacific Science”, Hawaii.

Description: It is a great pleasure to announce that the technical difficulties delaying the printing of Flora Malesiana have now been overcome. The first part of volume 4 is in the press and, in all probability, will appear towards the end of this year. Sample sheets of volumes 1, 2, and 3 will be added to the initial instalment of volume 4. Owing to a generous grant by the Netherlands Indies Government of this first issue of the 4th vol. 2500 copies will be printed and distributed to all individual botanists and institutions which are believed to have an interest in the Flora, in order to enable them to form an idea of the scope, execution, and costs of subscription of the work. Those receiving this Bulletin will also receive the initial part. It is expected that volume 1 – which will be issued as one whole – will be in print at the end of this year.

Description: ( (Report in the ”Gardens’ Bulletin, Singapore”, vol. XI, pt 4, 1947). Prior to the Japanese attack on Malaya, most of the senior staff of the Gardens were seconded for other duties under the Department of Food Control and Information, for at least part of the time. The result was that botanical work was reduced, and considerable arrears of unnamed and undistributed specimens accumulated. The Gardens were maintained as usual, with the addition of demonstration plots of vegetables.

Description: In 1826 REINWARDT published in ”Sylloge Plantarum” &c, vol. 2, pp. 1-15 under the title ”Nova plantarum indicarum genera” an article containing descriptions of some Malaysian genera of phanerogams. Amongst them is described on pag 1: Angiopetalum punctatum Reinw. n.g.n.sp. from Java. Though assigned to the Myrsinaceae by DALIA TORRE & HARMS this genus has hitherto remained obscure, and has not even been mentioned by MIQUEL. However, there is a name Allopetalum punctatum REINW. mentioned by SCHEFFER (De Myrsin. 1967, 93) as a MS. name in the synonymy of Ardisia pumila BL., also mentioned by MEZ (Pfl. Reich 9 (1902) 171) for that plant, which is now commonly known as Labisia pumila (BL.) B. & H. The type specimens of Allopetalum punctatum REINW. at Leyden (sheets 908.133.- 614 and 903.255 – 190) are undoubtedly the type specimens of Angiopetalum punctatum REINW. The name under which this species was published differs from that found in REINWARDT’s handwriting hut this is of small significance. Many name-changes occur in the materials assembled by KUHL & VAN HASSELT, ZIPPEL, REINWAKDT (and BLUME) whose herbaria were left in BLUME’s care. On the type sheet of Orescia montana REINW. in the same paper of REINWARDT’s I found on the labels the following MS. names: Lysimachia montana BL., Phaemeria montana, Rumeria montana and Lysimachia cuspidata BL, an embarrassing choice from which only the last one has been validly published. In the case of Angiopetalum, REINWARDT who had probably the herbarium not at his disposal copied the name from MS. notes, the herbarium being with BLUME either in Java or at Brussels. Later he hardly paid any attention to phytography or nomenclature.

Description: Small trees, mostly deciduous, bark gummy, wood soft, roots thickened, pungent; trunk often inflated. Leaves spread, imperfectly 2—4-imparipinnate; tissue with myrosin cells; pinnae opposite, provided with stipitate glands at the base of the petiolules and pinnae. Leaflets small, opposite, entire, all articulated. Stipules represented by blunt knobs. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic, white (or yellow streaked red), in axillary panicles. Calyx tube short, as a hypanthium; lobes 5 imbricate, spreading or reflexed, separately dropping. Petals 5 free, anterior one largest and erect, others reflexed, posterior smallest. Disk lining the calyx tube, with a short free margin bearing the androecium. Perfect stamens 5 epipetalous; anthers dorsifixed, 1-celled, oblong, when lengthwise opened broader. Staminodes 5, subulate, with or without rudimentary anthers. Ovary superior, shortly stalked, 1-celled with 3 parietal placentas. Style filiform, stigma small. Ovules ~, in 2 series on each placenta. Capsule linear, beaked, 3—6-angled; valves thick, spongy, on the inside with pitted cavities in 1 row along the median line. Seeds 3-winged (or exalate), body roundish large. Embryo exalbuminous, straight, containing oil. Distr. Ca 10 spp., confined to the semi-arid countries of Somaliland, Madagascar, SW. Africa, NE. Africa, Asia Minor, 2 spp. in India.

Description: Small trees, shrubs or twining woody plants, rarely herbs; branches terete. Glands present in various parts. Indumentum consisting of simple hairs, or in Viburnum sometimes lepidote; glandular hairs mostly present. Stems often pithy. Leaves decussate, simple or deeply divided (Sambucus), sometimes provided with pitted or cup-shaped glands exuding resin. Stipules absent or very small. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, mostly cymosely arranged, 4—5-merous; outer flowers in an inflorescence sometimes differing from the normal ones, rarely ( Sambucus p.p.) some fls aborted into extra-floral nectaries. Calyx adnate to the ovary, (4—)5-fid or -toothed, mostly constricted below the limb; sepals often enlarged in fruit. Corolla epigynous, gamopetalous, sometimes 2-lipped, lobes mostly imbricate in bud. Stamens inserted on the corolla tube, alternating with the lobes, extrorse or introrse. Anthers free, 2-celled, dorsifixed, versatile, cells parallel, opening lengthwise, mostly introrse; filaments sometimes reflexed or curved in bud. Ovary inferior, 1-(2-)3-5(-8)-celled, in fruit cells sometimes partly abortive. Style terminal, often slender with one knoblike stigma, or 3 short partly connate styles. Ovules 1(-~), pendulous or axile. Fruit a drupe or berry, rarely a capsule. Seeds often only one per fruit, often with bony testa. Endosperm copious, sometimes ruminate; embryo straight, often small and linear, axial, cotyledons oval or oblong. Distr. Ca 10-14 genera, mainly distributed on the N. hemisphere, in the tropics mostly confined to the mountains, on the S. hemisphere only Viburnum and Sambucus, an endemic genus in New Zealand, two monotypic endemic genera in New Caledonia, in Australia only Sambucus in the eastern part.

Description: Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, often fleshy, glabrous, papillate or hairy. Leaves opposite or alternate, exstipulate, sometimes seemingly wanting, stalked or sessile, entire, dentate-serrate-lobed or irregularly gashed. Flowers solitary, 2—3-nate or glomerate, usually sessile, either axillary or in terminal or axillary dense or interrupted spikes or panicles, ♀ or unisexual, monochlamydous, rarely achlamydous, small; bracts present or absent, usually small, rarely leafy. Perianth herbaceous or sometimes scarious, rarely (in ♀) absent, 3—5-partite with (in bud) imbricate segments, or sometimes almost entirely gamophyllous and then shortly lacerate-dentate or unilaterally cleft, persistent, after anthesis accrescent or not. Stamens often the same number as tepals and opposite to them, sometimes fewer, usually inserted on or near base of perianth; filaments free or shortly connate; anthers dorsifixed or inserted in a basal cleft, 2-celled (4-locellate); cells bursting longitudinally. Ovary free or at the base adnate to the perianth, 1-celled; ovule 1, basal, sessile and erect or suspended from a funicle; styles or stigmas 2-5, linear. Utricle either enclosed by the perianth or not, indehiscent or rarely operculate; seed erect, oblique or horizontal, usually compressed; endosperm mostly present, peripheral, surrounding the embryo; embryo annular or spirally twisted. Distr. Species numerous, inhabitants of the temperate and tropical zones of both hemispheres.

Description: Delicate, annual or perennial herbs, aquatic and then either entirely submersed, or floating in the upper part, or, in humid localities, not rarely terrestrial and creeping, with slender stems. Leaves opposite, at the summits of floating stems often spuriously rosulate, exstipulate, small, linear, elliptic, oblong or spathulate, entire, herbaceous, in the Mal. sp. triplenerved. Flowers minute, unisexual, axillary, solitary or rarely one ♂ and one ♀ flower from the same axil, often with 2 caducous, transversal, opposite, tender concave bracts. Calyx and corolla absent, ♂: Stamen 1; filament thin, anther 2-celled, cells bursting lengthwise, the slits becoming confluent at the top. ♀: Ovary sessile or subsessile, 4-lobed, 4-celled. Ovule solitary in each cell, pendulous from the top of the cavity. Styles 2, free, often long, papillose. Fruit 4-lobed, with longitudinally margined or winged lobes. Testa membranous; endosperm fleshy; embryo terete, straight. Distr. Only genus in the family, worldwide distributed, not yet known from S. Africa and in various regions scarce, in Malaysia apparently very rare, the only record proving its being indigenous is from the New Guinean highlands. Because of their small size terrestrial forms are easily overlooked.

Description: Trees (or shrubs), often deciduous, producing gum and an orange juice. Leaves spread, palmatilobed, often with domatia in the axils of the main ribs; stipules caducous. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, showy, mostly golden-yellow, paniculate or racemose. Sepals 5 imbricate. Petals 5, imbricate or contorted, emarginate. Stamens ~, with free filaments, equal or subequal; anthers 2-celled, linear, basifixed, opening by introrse, short, often confluent pore-like slits. Ovary 1-celled with laminal placentas projecting into the cell, or perfectly or imperfectly 3-celled, the upper portion remaining 1-celled; ovules ~, style simple, stigma punctiform. Capsule 3—5-valved, valves of the endocarp separating from and alternating with those of the pericarp. Seeds covered by woolly hairs, mostly cochleate-reniform; endosperm copious, rich in oil; embryo large, conforming to the shape of the seed; cotyledons broad. Distr. Ca 15 spp., mostly in trop. and subtropical America, some in trop. Africa and SE. Asia, 3 species in N. Australia, rare in Malaysia; G. gillivrayi is possibly the only native Malaysian species. LAM assumed the genus to belong to the ‘antarctic’ type(Blumea 1 (1935) 135), but it is manifestly peri-tropical.

Description: Evergreen, glabrous trees or shrubs, without resin-tubes. Leaves spread, simple, entire, more or less crowded towards the ends of the shoots, shining, exstipulate; midrib sulcate; shoots with perular terminal buds. Branches often in pseudowhorls. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes lateral, generally not exceeding the leaves. Flowers on the ultimate axis in fascicles of 3, towards the end solitary, pedicellate, bracteate. Calyx deeply 5-lobed, fleshy, persistent, petaloid, lobes inequal, concave, imbricate, 2 outermost smallest. Petals 5, thinner than the sepals, inserted at the margin of the disk-like receptacle. Stamens 5, attached to the base of the petals; filaments flattened or terete, slightly thickened towards the base; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing lengthwise, intrors. Staminodes petaloid, dentate in the upper half, top mostly pointed, alternating with the petals. Disk glands 5, ovoid to ellipsoid, epistaminodial. Ovary ovoid, originally 2-celled, one cell soon abortive. Styles 1-2; stigma punctiform. Ovule 1, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, or a nut, with fibrous endocarp. Testa membranous; cotyledons planoconvex; albumen absent. Distr. Four spp., one each in New Zealand and adjacent islands, N. Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and N. Queensland & E. Malaysia.

Description: Mostly perennial, paludose, grass-like herbs with fibrous roots; stembase very rarely thickened, often profusely producing shoots. Leaves basal, distichous on each shoot, ensiform, linear or filiform, sometimes twisted; sheaths with a membranous margin (in Mal. spp.) producing mucilage (?always), with or without a short ligule; limb glabrous or with numerous, small hard papillae, sometimes with a stout nerve in either margin. Flowers ♀♂, in terminal, few- to many-flowered heads, 3-merous, yellow to white, ephemeral, each in the axil of a conspicuous bract; bracts conchate, imbricate, spirally arranged, lower ones sterile; one to few flowers simultaneously in anthesis. Peduncles scape-like, terete to compressed, sometimes winged or ribbed, glabrous or with numerous hard papillae, at the base with some sheaths provided with a short limb. Bracts entire, ciliate, fimbriate or lacerate, with one complete main nerve and some complete or incomplete longitudinal secondary (descending) nerves, in the apical part mostly with a small minutely-papillose field. Calyx zygomorphic; lateral sepals navicular, with entire, dentate or ciliate crest, wings membranous, entire, glabrous or ciliate; median sepal membranous, spathelliform or cap-shaped, enveloping the corolla, mostly obovate, 1-3(-5)-nerved, pushed out by the corolla in anthesis(?always). Corolla actinomorphic, ephemeral; petals with an orbicular to obovate limb and a long, narrow claw, free, cohering mutually or by the staminodes. Stamens mostly 3 fertile epipetalous inserted on the petals and 3 alternating staminodes, staminodes rarely absent, or all stamens fertile; filaments short; anthers basifix, dehiscing lengthwise extrorsely. Ovary superior, sessile to stipitate (in Australian spp. sometimes with 3 hard swellings at the top), 1- or 3-celled, or incompletely 3-celled. Placentas parietal, central, or basal, with ~ ovules; styles filiform, apex 3-fid, stigmas mostly capitate. Fruit shape similar to that of the ovary but larger, loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds ellipsoid to obovoid, often ribbed, with a long funicle. Distr. Xyridaceae are confined to the tropics throughout the world including the southern parts of North America; east of Malaysia and Australia hitherto only recorded from the Patau group (Korror) and New Caledonia.

Description: The Flora Malesiana is not preceded by a general key enabling one to identify any unknown native or wild plant to the family or genus to which it belongs. This is certainly a serious lack and presents a formidable handicap to inexperienced taxonomists in rapid naming current collections. However, there are several forcing arguments for omitting—at present—such an attempt which in itself would present no facile task, and could be accomplished only by a taxonomist thoroughly acquainted with the Malaysian flora. One could of course use some world key as a basis and cut out the entries leading to genera or families not represented in the Malaysian flora, but this procedure would be unsatisfactory, specially as these world keys make little use of vegetative characters; the latter appear to me very important specially in the earlier forks of the keys.

Description: Annual or perennial, unarmed or spinous, bitter herbs or undershrubs, often glandular-hairy. Stem terete, farctate, with a peripheral whorl of air-vessels. Leaves spread, simple, entire, exstipulate. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic, solitary, opposite or between the leaves, or by stunting of the leaves, more or less arranged in a racemiform or paniculiform inflorescence, distinctly pedicelled, lilac blue. Calyx persistent, 5-partite to near the base, segments lanceolate, imbricate in bud, after anthesis not or hardly accrescent. Corolla gamopetalous, deeply 5-partite; limb rotate; segments imbricate in bud, oval, obtuse. Stamens 5, free, inserted in the throat of the corolla, alternating with the segments; filaments filiform from a broadened base, glabrous or papillate; anthers 2-celled, bifid at the base and apex, opening lengthwise. Disk absent. Ovary superior, 2- (rarely 3-, very rarely more-) celled; placentas adnate to the dissepiment, spongy, entire or in cross-section bifid; styles 2 (rarely 3 or more), free; stigmas capitate-clavate. Ovules ~. Capsule globose or ellipsoid, loculicid, or both loculicid and septicid, 2(rarely more)-valved, or bursting irregularly. Seeds ~, very small, longitudinally ribbed; endosperm small, straight. Distr. Species ± 20, in the tropics of both hemispheres; in Malaysia 2, of which one indigenous, the other introduced and naturalized in Java.

Description: Rhizomes (rarely spiny) producing annual, mostly twining shoots, in Malaysia twining either to the right (fig. 4c) or the left (fig. 4a). Stems consisting of a main stem and sterile branches, both bearing leafless flowering axes. Leaves petiolate, generally cordate, simple and entire or palmately lobed, or palmately compound, except in the latter triplinerved; apex generally glandular, developed before the blade (forerunner tip); blade usually glandular on the lower side chiefly towards the base. Flowers hermaphrodite or dioecious, ♀ with staminodes, ♂ without even a rudimentary ovary, actinomorphic, 3-merous, mostly inconspicuous and greenish, ♂ often massed together and scented. Tepals in two whorls of 3. Stamens in 2 whorls of 3, the inner sometimes sterile; anthers usually introrse. Torus an urceolate, perianthoid chamber in Stenomeris, a saucer or cup in many spp. of Dioscorea, fleshy in Dioscorea § Enantiophyllum, in some spp. enlarged into a cone making the stamens appear to be connate. Style 1 with 3 bifid stigmas. Ovary 3-locular, inferior, sometimes separated from the perianth by a constriction. Ovules 2 in each cell or ~ (in Stenomeris), anatropous. Fruit a capsule, but it breaks up rather than dehisces in Trichopus. Seeds winged or wingless (in Trichopus); endosperm horny, embryo in a marginal pocket. Distr. Ca 9 genera and about 600 spp. (Dioscorea large, the other genera small or monotypic). Pantropic with considerable extensions into temperate regions. The Stenomerideae and Trichopodeae are restricted to the warm humid regions where Nepenthes grows and their geologic history must have been that of Nepenthes: they may be regarded as the survivors of the hermaphrodite ancestry of the Dioscoreeae.

Description: Herbs or shrubs, sometimes parasitic, usually with twining stems, occasionally prostrate or creeping, or erect, very rarely trees, often with milky juice. Leaves mostly spirally arranged, in parasitic species absent or nearly so, usually petioled; petiole sometimes with extra-floral nectaries. Stipules absent, pseudostipules (leaves of axillary shoot) rarely present. Inflorescences mostly cymose, one- to many-flowered, with mostly opposite or subopposite bracts at the base of the cymes or under the solitary flowers; rarely racemose. Flowers generally hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, rarely slightly zygomorphic, usually 5-merous, rarely 4-merous, various in size and colour, often showy. Sepals usually free, imbricate, with quincuncial aestivation, often persistent, sometimes accrescent in fruit. Corolla sympetalous, of various shapes, often funnel-shaped or campanulate, more rarely rotate, salver-shaped or urceolate; the limb nearly entire or more or less deeply lobed, often contorted-plicate in bud, or valvate or induplicate-valvate. Stamens isomerous, alternating with the corolla-lobes, adnate to the corolla, with usually slender, often filiform filaments and introrse or laterally and longitudinally dehiscing anthers. Pollen smooth or spinulose. Disk mostly present, annular or cupular. Ovary superior, mostly of 2 carpels, 2- or 1-celled, sometimes 4-celled by development of accessory partitions, rarely of 3 carpels and 3-celled; ovules 2 in each carpel, sessile, erect, anatropous. Style 1, often filiform, simple or forked, or 2 free styles, rarely very short or absent. Stigma entire or 2-lobed, rarely 3-lobed, or stigmas 2-4, of various shape, globular or ellipsoid to filiform, sometimes applanate, rarely peltate, kidney-shaped, conical or funnel-shaped. Fruit a capsule dehiscing by valves or circumscissile or irregularly dehiscing, rarely a berry or nut-like. Seeds as many as ovules or fewer; endosperm cartilaginous; cotyledons generally folded, sometimes obscure or absent. Distr. Ca 55 genera, with ca 1650 spp., widely distributed in the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of both hemispheres; the greater part of the species in the tropics and subtropics of America and Asia. The larger genera Cuscuta (ca 165 spp.), Convolvulus (ca 250 spp.) and Ipomoea (ca 500 spp.) nearly throughout the range of the family but Convolvulus more in the temperate parts and Ipomoea more in the tropics and subtropics. Other large genera as Evolvulus (ca 100 spp.) and Jacquemontia (ca 120 spp.) nearly confined to America. Argyreia (ca 90 spp.) confined to tropical Asia. Malaysia, and a single sp. in Australia, and Merremia (ca 80 spp.) circumtropical. Several monotypic or small genera in E. Africa, Madagascar, and Australia.

Description: It is not without some pride and much satisfaction that the present volume, fourth planned in the series, second in sequence of publication, is brought to a successful end. Satisfaction I feel through the fact that the scheme and aim of this work is not only understood by the scientific-botanical world, but has also been accepted in the administrative world: Notwithstanding the long term scope of the work, the High Government of the Republic of Indonesia, having realized the essential value of basic scientific work in the natural sciences for the welfare of the future generations of its young nation, has been instrumental in authorizing the Director of Kebun Raya Indonesia (Botanic Gardens of Indonesia, Bogor) to create a Flora Malesiana Foundation. Sponsored by the Indonesian Government, this Foundation knits together the work and interest of the Herbarium Bogoriense of Kebun Raya Indonesia and the Netherlands Rijksherbarium at Leyden, the direction of which have officially agreed to a long-range close co-operation.

Description: Halophobous, aquatic or palustrial perennial herbs, rooting in the mud or freefloating. Stem erect or floating, solid, with numerous air-chambers as are the petioles. Leaves rosulate or alternate, or solitary at the top of the stem, emersed, floating or submerged, broad or narrow, curvinerved (when emersed); petioles sheathing at the base. Flowers ♀, ephemerous, mostly in racemiform, spiciform, subumbelliform or paniculiform inflorescences which are subtended by 1-2 spathelike or tubular leaf-sheaths, rarely solitary or pairwise in the leaf-axils. Bracts minute or absent. Flowers often simultaneously or centrifugally expanding. Perianth choriphyllous or gamophyllous, 6-merous, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, blue or lilac, rarely yellow, after anthesis marcescent and tightly including the ovary or the fruit. Stamens 6 or 3, rarely 1, on the base, in the tube or in the throat of the perianth, often unequal; filaments free; anthers 2-celled, cells bursting lengthwise, rarely opening by pores. Ovary superior, sessile, 3-celled, with axile placentas or 1-celled with 3 parietal or with 1 apical placenta. Ovules numerous or 1 and then pendulous from the apex of the cell. Style 1; stigma entire or minutely 3-lobed. Fruit a 3-valved capsule or indehiscent. Seed(s) longitudinally ribbed. Embryo central, terete, straight, hardly shorter than the copious, mealy endosperm. Distr. About 8 small genera and ± 25 species, 6 genera confined to the New World, one in Madagascar, one widely distributed in the Old World; in Malaysia one native genus, one introduced and abundantly naturalized, and one occasionally cultivated as an ornamental.

Description: Erect tall annual, usually branched. Leaves simple, with 2 free stipules, in the lower part of the stem opposite, in the higher part spirally arranged, long-petioled, palmate, 3—11-foliolate. Flowers (♂) (♀) or mostly (♂♀). Male flowers in short, dense cymes, which are united into lax, foliate, terminal panicles, very shortly pedicelled. Tepals 5, free, oblong, membranous, imbricate. Stamens 5, epitepalous; filaments erect and short in bud, linear, with a narrowed apex; anthers comparatively large, basifixed, 2-celled, cells opening longitudinally, rudimentary ovary absent. Female flowers solitary in the axil of a small, primary, membranous, entire bract closely enveloping the ovary, each enveloped by a spathaceous, conspicuous, acuminate, secondary bract. Perianth absent. Ovary sessile, 1-celled; style central; stigmas 2, sessile, long, filiform, caducous. Ovule solitary, pendulous. Achene closely enveloped by the much enlarged, secondary bract, broadly oval, with a concave rimmed base, much compressed, faintly keeled on the lateral margins; pericarp smooth, hard, crustaceous, easily splitting into two halves; albumen unilateral, scanty, fleshy; embryo large, horseshoe-shaped; cotyledons large; radicle long. Distr. Monotypic, native of Central Asia, cultivated in tropical Asia, naturalized in N. America.

Description: Small trees or erect shrubs. Leaves spirally arranged, simple, petioled, entire, palmatinerved, densely red-dotted. Stipules small, very caducous. Flowers in terminal corymbs or panicles, actinomorphic, ♀, rather large. Pedicel with 5-6 apical glands. Sepals 4-5, free, imbricate in bud, falling off as soon as the flower expands. Petals 4-7, free, imbricate in bud. Stamens numerous, inserted on an annular hypogynous disk; filaments thin, free; anthers horseshoe-shaped, passing over the top of the filament and with both ends closely applied to i , 2-celled; cells opening in the middle (on the top of the filament) by short slits which unite into a spuriously apical pore. Ovary superior, usually bristly, 1-celled, with 2 opposite parietal slightly intruding placentas. Style 1, sinuous, rather thick; stigma 2-dentate. Ovules very numerous. Capsule compressed contrary to the placentas, usually softly prickly, rarely smooth, loculicidally bivalved; endocarp membranous, separating from the valves. Seeds numerous, obovoid, angular; testa fleshy, very densely studded with small, round, red, sessile glands; albumen well-developed, not oil-containing; embryo rather large. Distr. Monotypic, native and cultivated in tropical America; cultivated in many other tropical countries.

Description: Annual (?)laticiferous herbs, with the habit of Phytolacca. Stem erect, somewhat succulent. Leaves spirally arranged, simple, entire, exstipulate. Inflorescences terminal, densely spicate, acropetal. Flowers subtended by a bract and two bracteoles, bisexual, actinomorphic. Calyx tube adnate to the ovary; segments 5, united below, imbricate, connivent, persistent. Corolla campanulate-urceolate, perigynous; lobes 5, imbricate. Stamens 5, epipetalous, alternating with the corolla lobes; filaments short; anthers rounded, 2-locular, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary semi-inferior, 2-locular; style short, stigma capitate; ovules attached to large spongy stipitate axile placentas. Capsule cuneate-obconic, 2-locular, membranous, circumscissile; seeds ~, minute, oblong, rugose-costate, albumen very scanty or none (?); embryo axile, straight, subterete. Distr. Mono-generic, almost pantropical.

Description: Submerged, rootless, monoecious freshwater plants. Leaves verticillate, 2-4 times forked, segments linear dentate. Flowers actinomorphic, solitary, axillary, unisexual. Perianth valvate, segments 9-12, persistent, narrow. ♂: stamens 8-24; anthers nearly sessile rather broad, connective pointed, the 2 cells mostly crowned by a minute bristle; ovary rudiment absent. ♀: ovary superior, sessile, 1-celled with 1 ovule; style persistent, subulate, sulcate towards the apex; stamen rudiments absent. Fruit oblong, compressed, warty, not dehiscent, near the base with 2 straight or curved soft spines, or unarmed. Distr. Ca 2 spp., both ubiquitous.

Description: Annual or perennial, saprophytic or autotrophic herbs; the saprophytic species often colourless. Leaves usually spread or alternate, entire, simple, without stipules; non-saprophytic species with a radical rosette of linear leaves; stem leaves often reduced to small scales; sometimes the basal part of the stem provided with many decurrent, grass-like leaves. Flowers ♀♂, usually actinomorphic, solitary or in capitate or cymose inflorescences. Perianth corolline; limb consisting of 2 whorls; tube sometimes 3-winged. Anthers 3, subsessile in the perianth throat and dehiscing laterally with horizontal slits,or 6, hanging down in the perianth tube and dehiscing with longitudinal slits. Connective large, often appendiculate. Style filiform or shortly cylindrical or conical. Stigmas 3, sometimes connate. Ovary inferior, 1-celled with parietal placentation, or 3-celled with axile placentation. Ovules ~, anatropous, with 2 integuments; funicles often rather long. Fruit usually capsular, sometimes fleshy, crowned by the persistent perianth tube and the style, or by a thickened persistent basal ring of the perianth tube, dehiscing irregularly or with transverse slits at the top. Seeds ~, small, subglobose to linear, sometimes with loose, reticulate testa, with endosperm. Distr. About 125 species, widely distributed in the tropics of both hemispheres, also in subtropical America, Chicago area, Moçambique, Southern China, Japan, Southern Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. As many species are rare, it is possible that only a part of their area is known. Most of them are found in moist regions. Among the autotrophic Malaysian Burmanniaceae there are 3 rather common species which are widely spread, viz Burmannia coelestis, B. disticha and B. longifolia. The latter two are absent from Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands, the former occurs in Java proper only in its western part. Of the saprophytic Malaysian species only 3 have been often collected, viz Burmannia championii, B. lutescens, and Gymnosiphon affinis.

Description: Trees, shrubs or lianas, rarely subherbaceous. Glands (in Mal. spp.) often present on the leaf-bases or petioles, and in lower marginal crenations. Indumentum of simple hairs, glandular hairs or multicellular hairs secreting calcium oxalate and forming scales, or present beneath the cuticle making the surface of the leaf minutely verruculose and sometimes pellucid-punctate. Leaves opposite, verticillate, spiral, or alternate, petioled (rarely sessile), exstipulate, simple, almost always entire. Flowers ♀♂ ♀♂ or ♀♂ and ♂ in the same inflorescences, usually protogynous, usually actinomorphic, rarely slightly zygomorphic, in axillary or extra-axillary elongated or subcapitate spikes or racemes or in terminal and sometimes axillary panicles. Receptacle (calyx-tube) usually in two distinct parts, the lower receptacle surrounding and adnate to the inferior ovary and the upper receptacle produced beyond to form a short or long tube terminating in the calyx-lobes, the latter sometimes poorly developed. Calyx-lobes 4 or 5 (rarely 6-8) or almost absent, sometimes accrescent ( Calycopteris). Petals 4 or 5 or absent, conspicuous or sometimes very small, inserted near the mouth of the upper receptacle. Stamens usually twice as many as the petals, borne inside the upper receptacle usually in two series, exserted or included; anthers dorsifixed, usually versatile (or rarely adnate to the filaments). Disk intrastaminal, usually present, hairy or glabrous. Style usually free (attached for part of its length to the upper receptacle in Quisqualis). Ovary inferior (semi-inferior in the West-African genus Strephonema), unilocular, with usually 2 (sometimes 2-6) pendulous, anatropous ovules of which only 1 usually developes. Fruit (botanically a pseudocarp) very variable in size and shape, fleshy or dry, usually indehiscent, often variously winged or ridged, 1-seeded. Albumen absent. Distr. 18 genera with c. 450 spp. in the tropics and subtropics: 2 are circumtropical ( Combretum and Terminalia), and are much the largest genera, 1 is confined to North Australia and Queensland (Macropteranthes), 2 confined to tropical Asia ( Finetia and Calycopteris) , 3 occur in Asia and Africa (Anogeissus, Lumnitzera, and Quisqualis), 1 is confined to Madagascar (Calopyxis), 3 are confined to tropical Africa (Guiera, Pteleopsis and Strephonema), 2 occur in tropical Africa and tropical America (Conocarpus and Laguncularia) and the remaining four ( Buchenavia, Bucida, Ramatuela and Thiloa) are confined to tropical and subtropical America.

Description: For various reasons the space occupied by pre-Linnean Malaysian phytography in this concise history seems too large and out of proportion in comparison to the survey of post-Linnean work. Modern plant description, though based on, and derived from, ancient beginnings and traditions, maintains but slender contacts with plant sciences earlier than the 18th century and it might claim to be allotted by far the larger space on account of its superior results, its greatly increased efficiency, its Consciousness of limitations and capabilities, its output, and its clearness of purpose. There exists, however, during the last decade, an increasing interest in the nearly forgotten botany of centuries long past, not only because of a certain taste for the quaint and attractive flavour of scientific efforts from minds so remote from our own, but also on account of a growing insight into the hidden springs of modern thought and method, which flow deeply, emerge unexpectedly, and appear to rise from distant roots. There is also, in connexion with this, the absorbing spectacle of discovery and of growth i.e. the development of a field of human culture that has bound devoted and excellent personalities in its service from the first glimmerings of our civilization.

Description: Scandent shrubs (often erect in youth), without resin; branches sympodial with a series of circinate woody hooks in one plane. Leaves spread, simple, entire, often rosette-crowded, cuneiform, penninervous, reticulate-veined, glabrous, both surfaces minutely pitted, each pit with a peltate small hair secreting a waxlike substance; petiole articulated, scar on the twigs often saddle-shaped; stipules absent. Flowers ♀♂, actinomorphic small. Inflor. few or several times dichotomous or spike-like, often provided with said hooks and single reduced bract-like leaves, branches often recurved. Pedicels articulated. Bracts with a glandular-thickened base, margin fimbriate-membranous. Calyx tube short, at length adnate to the base of the ovary; lobes 5 inequal imbricate, enlarged and wing-like in fruit. Petals 5, united at the base, slightly contorted in bud. Stamens mostly 10, rarely 5, the episepalous slightly longer. Filaments with broadened base; anthers basifixed, ± introrse to ± latrorse, 2-celled, opening lengthwise. Ovary for the greater part inferior, consisting of 3 carpels, 1-celled, protruding into a nippleshaped elongation bearing 3 articulated erect styles with a punctiform or horseshoe-shaped stigmatic apex; nipple enlarging in fruit. Ovule 1, basal, ascending, with 2 integuments. Nut not dehiscent, crowned by the enlarged calyx. Seed roundish with testa intruding between the cerebral-like folds of the endosperm. Exocarp leathery. Embryo straight, erect, obliquely placed; cotyledons diverging; hypocotyl rather thick. Distr. Disjunct, ca 3 spp. in trop. W. Africa, and 9 in SE. Asia, from the Deccan to Burma, Indochina, Hainan, S. China, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra (cf. fig. 2).

Description: Floating aquatic herbs with dimorphic leaves, submerged ones opposite pinnatifid rootlike, apical ones in a rosette, rhomboid, dentate, with spongy often inflated petiole, arranged in leaf-mosaic; stipules 4-8, minute. Flowers bisexual, small, solitary, axillary, short-pedicelled, 4-merous, white or lilac. Petals imbricate. Disk present. Ovary half-inferior with 1 style and 2-4 persistent sepals turning often to thorns or horns. Fruit mostly 1-celled, 1-seeded, shell bone-hard; thorns after withering often set with barbs at the apex. Seed often producing 2-5 free germ-stalks. Distr. Several species in the Old World, but not known from Australia.

Description: Priority of publication is internationally accepted as the basic principle of the ‘Rules of Botanical Nomenclature’. This has emphasized to a marked degree the importance of determining accurately the exact time when novelties are placed before the scientific public.

Description: Dioecious trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, scattered. Stipules O. Flowers unisexual, often in heads, in the axils of a bract and with 2 bracteoles. ♂: in axillary heads or short racemes; calyx entire or 5-toothed; petals 5, imbricate, often small, alternate with the calyx; stamens 8-16 in 2 alternating whorls; anthers small, dorsifixed with lateral lengthwise slits; disk pulvinate; style rudimentary. ♀: solitary, axillary or in 2-10-flowered heads; ovary inferior, 1-locular, connate with the 5-toothed or entire calyx; petals 5-8 often minute; stamens of inner whorl partly sterile, both petals and anthers soon dropping; style with 2 appressed later divergent often torulose branches stigmatose on their inside, brittle, often deficient in the herbarium. Ovule 1, hanging from the apex of the cell, anatropous with 2 integuments. Fruit drupaceous ovoid to oblong. Distr. Ca 6 spp., 4 in Atlantic N. America, 1 in China, 1 from India to W. Malaysia.

Description: Trees, rarely shrubs. Leaves simple, mostly glandular-punctate, exstipulate. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic, 5-merous. Calyx-tube short, tube (and usually segments) densely setulose-hairy within. Corolla represented by 7-40 deltoid to linear-subulate processes, rarely by a low entire annulus. Stamens 8-80; filaments free, short, slender; anthers hippocrepiform. Disk 0. Ovary (2-)3-5(-8)-locular; cells with one anatropous ovule pendulous from the apex. Style elongate, filiform, sometimes accompanied by ‘parastyles’ at the base; stigma small, capitate. Fruit a thick-walled, woody, dehiscent, 1—5-seeded capsule, or a thin-walled, (?) indehiscent, 1—2-seeded capsule. Seeds large, without chalazal fold, usually with aril. Endosperm 0. Distr. Almost confined to Malaysia, occurring in all parts of the archipelago except E. Java and the Lesser Sunda Isl.; found also in the Nicobar, Solomon and Fiji Islands. Genera 3. The greatest number of species is concentrated in Borneo, with apparently a marked inner centre of differentiation in the western part of the island. Fig. 1.

Description: The present notes deal with a small collection of frogs that was made by Dr. P. WAGENAAR HUMMELINCK during his visits to the islands of the Leeward Group, Venezuela and Eastern Colombia. I have included in this study the specimens of Pleurodema brachyops (Cope) already present in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, and in the Zoologisch Museum, Amsterdam. The amphibian fauna of the Dutch Leeward Islands is very poor indeed. It consists of a single species Pleurodema brachyops (Cope)) that occurs in Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire and Klein Bonaire. Bufo marinus (L.) has apparently been introduced into Aruba within the last few years (cf. p. 91). J. H. R. NEERVOORT VAN DE POLL, who visited Aruba in 1885, took a specimen of a Leptodactylus species. This has been mentioned by VAN LIDTH DE JEUDE (1887, p. 134) as ? Rana copii Blgr.” On the authority of Dr. G. A. BOULENGER the identification was changed into Leptodactylus albilabris (Gthr.), and as such it has been mentioned recently by BOSCHMA (1947, p. 42).

Description: Two species of leeches only have been collected by dr HUMMELINCK in 1936—1937, but these are important as they evidently prove the occurrence in warm tropical waters of species hitherto only recorded from non-tropical areas. Helobdella scutifera is distinguished from H. stagnalis by AUTRUM, 1936, p. 26 and 34, though PAWLOWSKY (cf. AUTRUM 1939, Bronns Kl. u. Ordn., Hirudineae 2, p. 500) considered them synonymous. AUTRUM (l. c. p. 500 and footnote) remarks that H. stagnalis is not known from tropical localities, supposing the habitats in Ecuador, Brasil and Paraguay perhaps to be non-tropical because of their particular position. Our material, however, shows affinities to both species and tends to affirm the identity of H. stagnalis and H. scutifera. It is important to know that our habitat was really tropical, the temperature measured being 28°—31° C.

Description: Tuyama, T.: On Rumphius’s ”Arbor ovigera and the related species, with reference to Hernandia sonora (Bull. of the Sigenkagaku Kenkyussyo, vol. 1, no. 1 (1943) 27-44, 4 fig. 2 pl.). The original is in Japanese, but there is a detailed extract in English and Latin. Description of a new species H. labyrinthica from Rota Isl., Mariannes; the original Rumphian plant typifies H. ovigera; a new name H. javanica is proposed for the Javanese plant described by Meisner. Nakai, T.: Nova Flora Japonica. Ardisiaceae. Tokyo & Osaka, 1943. 170 pp. 42 fig. The book is written in Japanese, except for the literature citations; new entities are described in Latin. Nomenclature deviates widely from the usual one.

Description: There are only a few things left in common to the displaced and disjointed inhabitants of this Earth; they are the things spiritual. Among those treasures of the mind natural science has come to the fore only in the last three centuries, as a lofty and impartial principle that tends to join people instead of disrupting them. Through war, famine and pestilence the undying fire of science has remained a steady beacon.

Description: Prostrate hairy herbs. Leaves opposite, paripinnate, mostly anisophyllous; stipules present. Flowers actinomorphic, 5-merous, bisexual, solitary on pseudo-axillary peduncles, white or yellow. Sepals 5, free, imbricate, persistent or caducous. Petals 5, free, patent, imbricate, fugacious. Disk present. Stamens 10, subequal or unequal; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary superior, sessile, hairy, 5—12-lobed, 5—12-celled; style short and thick, with 5—12 decurrent stigmas; cells with 3 or more ovules. Fruit 5-angled or 5—12-winged; cocci partly abortive, spinous or tuberculate, indehiscent with 3-5 superposed seeds separated by septa. Distr. & Ecol. Ca 20 spp. difficult to delimit, specially developed in the dry regions of Africa and Australia. In S. Africa the spinous fruits adhere to the wool and feet of sheep (‘hoof-burs’) and are a nuisance. The family has about 26 genera, of which 12 monotypic, and ca 250 spp., mostly of warm dry countries. In Malaysia one genus and one species.

Description: Glabrous trees, shrubs or, for the greater part, vines. Leaves decussate, simple, entire, penninerved, exstipulate, mostly provided with fine, pellucid lines (spicular cells) parallel to the secondary nerves and then bearded on fracture. Spikes ramified or simple, axillary or often cauline, dioecious, each one with 2 opposite basal scales and several collars containing moniliform hairs and sessile flowers, either numerous spirally arranged male ones below a ring of some sterile female ones, or a ring of few fertile female ones. ♂ Flower: a claw-shaped, transversely splitting perianth and a central stamen with 2 (in G. gnemonoides one) apical, yellow microsporangia that open by an apical median split. ♀ Flower: a fleshy outer envelop (‘perianth’) and 2 thin inner ones (‘integuments’), the innermost with a long, slender, apical tube, and an orthotropous ovule; sterile ♀ flower without the middle envelop. Fruit pink (in G. neglectum and G. oxycarpum yellow), consisting of the fleshy outer envelop, which in some spp. is narrowed into a stalk, the hardened, ribbed middle envelop, the thin, silky, inner envelop, and a large, horny seed with small embryo. Distr. About 30 species, of which 7 in northern S. America, 2 in western tropical Africa, the remainder in tropical Asia from Bombay to Fu-Kien, through Malaysia to Fiji, neither in Formosa nor in Australia or New Caledonia. Centre of present development: eastern Malaysia. The distributional areas of several species present some marked lines within the archipelago.

Description: Rhizomatose, aromatic or pungent, perennial, often stoloniferous herbs. Stem articulated. Leaves simple, entire, scattered (not alternate), often oblique; leaf base mostly reniform-cordate, nervation mostly palmate. Petiole sheathing or an intrapetiolar stipule. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, small, in terminal spikes or racemes or opposite the leaves (sympodial), each in the axil of a bract, bract sometimes connate with the pedicel; lowest bracts sometimes petaloid. Perianth absent. Stamens 3, 4, 6 or 8, sometimes partly abortive, free or adnate to the basal part of the ovary or epigynous. Anthers 2-celled, splitting lengthwise laterally or extrorse. Ovary composed of 3-4 connate carpels, or 1-celled with 4-3 parietal placentas. Styles free or connate at the base, often recurved, stigmatose on the inner surface. Fruit capsular opening at the top, or consisting of tubercled indehiscent 1-seeded cocci. Distr. 4 genera, 2 in E. Asia, 1 in California, and 1 both in Asia and Atlantic N. America; the latter with 2 species, the others monotypic.

Description: Herbs or undershrubs, usually succulent, perennial, less often annual or biennial. Leaves spirally arranged, opposite or whorled, exstipulate, simple or compound, entire, dentate, crenate, serrate or deeply incised. Flowers ♀, rarely unisexual, actinomorphic, usually cymose or cymose-paniculate, rarely spicate or solitary in leaf-axils, pedicelled or sessile, mostly 4—5-, rarely 3- or polymerous. Sepals free or nearly so, or united into a distinct tube, after anthesis marcescent and persistent as are the petals. Petals the same number as sepals, rarely more, hypogynous, free or variously connate. Stamens either as many as petals and alternate with them or twice their number, perigynous or all or partly inserted on the corolla; filaments free from each other; anthers 2-celled; cells introrse, dehiscing longitudinally. Hypogynous scales as many as carpels, placed singly at the back of them, free or at the base adnate to the base of the carpels. Carpels superior, the same number as petals, epipetalous, free or connate at the base, 1-celled. Ovules inserted on the adaxial side, mostly many, biseriate, rarely solitary or few. Styles as many as carpels, free, linear or subulate, short to long. Fruit follicular, membranous or leathery, opening on the adaxial side. Seeds minute, endosperm usually fleshy; embryo straight. Distr. About 20 genera and upwards of 700 spp., in the frigid, temperate and warm regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, northern and tropical America, rare in S. America and Australia, absent from Polynesia.